Pre-Association Discovery of Services

1. A method comprising: filtering, based on a first policy by a network node of a wireless local area network (WLAN), information about services available via the network node, the first policy being a privacy policy based on inspection of content of the information about the services to ensure unwanted information is not conveyed to unassociated wireless devices; further filtering, by the network node, the information about the services based on a second policy relating to at least one condition of the network node, the second policy being based on at least one of a channel load of a communication channel, or a maximum bandwidth of a network, the filtering and the further filtering producing filtered information about the services; transmitting, by the network node to the unassociated wireless devices as part of a pre-association discovery operation, the filtered information about the services; and associating, by the network node, with a first unassociated wireless device of the unassociated wireless devices in response to selection of the network node by the first unassociated wireless device based on the pre-association discovery operation.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the information about the services is stored in a service database before the filtering and the further filtering.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the information about the services is stored in a service database after the filtering and the further filtering.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first policy is to prevent transmission of one of an Internet Protocol (IP) address or port information to the unassociated wireless devices.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the information about the services is obtained from multicast Domain Name System (DNS) service discovery frames received by the network node on a local area network (LAN) interface of the network node, wherein the filtering and the further filtering are of the information about the services obtained from the multicast DNS service discovery frames.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the information about the services is received by the network node via an application programming interface (API) for registering services.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the information about the services is input to a management console by an operator of the network node.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: receiving, by the network node, the information about the services from one or more server devices that provide the services.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the filtering comprises one or more of: removing a subset of information from the information about the services, or selecting a subset of information from the information about the services.

10. A network node for a wireless local area network (WLAN), comprising: at least one processor; and a non-transitory storage medium storing instructions executable on the at least one processor to: obtain information about services from multicast Domain Name System (DNS) service discovery frames received on a local area network (LAN) interface of the network node, the services being available via the network node; filter, based on a first policy, the information about the services obtained from the multicast DNS service discovery frames, the first policy being a privacy policy based on inspection of content of the information about the services to ensure unwanted information is not conveyed to unassociated wireless devices; further filter the information about the services obtained from the multicast DNS service discovery frames based on a second policy relating to at least one condition of the network node, the second policy being based on at least one of a time-of-day, a channel load, or a maximum bandwidth, the filtering and the further filtering to produce filtered information about the services; transmit, to the unassociated wireless devices as part of a pre-association discovery operation, the filtered information about the services; and associate with a first unassociated wireless device of the unassociated wireless devices in response to selection of the network node by the first unassociated wireless device based on the pre-association discovery operation.

11. The network node of claim 10 , wherein the information about the services is stored in a service database before the filtering and the further filtering.

12. The network node of claim 10 , wherein the information about the services is stored in a service database after the filtering and the further filtering.

13. The network node of claim 10 , wherein the first policy is to prevent transmission of one of an Internet Protocol (IP) address or port information to the unassociated wireless devices.

14. The network node of claim 10 , wherein the instructions are executable on the at least one processor to further obtain the information about the services via an application programming interface (API) for registering services.

15. The network node of claim 10 , wherein the instructions are executable on the at least one processor to further obtain the information about the services based on input to a management console by an operator of the network node.

16. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions that upon execution cause a wireless local area network (WLAN) network node to: filter, based on a first policy, information about services available via the network node, the first policy being a privacy policy based on inspection of content of the information about the services to ensure unwanted information is not conveyed to unassociated wireless devices; further filter the information about the services based on a second policy relating to at least one condition of the network node, the second policy being based on at least one of a channel load of a communication channel, or a maximum bandwidth of a network, the filtering and the further filtering to produce filtered information about the services; transmit, to the unassociated wireless devices as part of a pre-association discovery operation, the filtered information about the services; and associate with a first unassociated wireless device of the unassociated wireless devices in response to selection of the network node by the first unassociated wireless device based on the pre-association discovery operation.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16 , wherein the first policy is to prevent transmission of one of an Internet Protocol (IP) address or port information to the unassociated wireless devices.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16 , wherein the instructions upon execution cause the WLAN network node to obtain the information about the services from multicast Domain Name System (DNS) service discovery frames received on a local area network (LAN) interface of the network node, wherein the filtering and the further filtering are of the information about the services obtained from the multicast DNS service discovery frames.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16 , wherein the instructions upon execution cause the WLAN network node to receive the information about the services via an application programming interface (API) for registering services.